In a joint statement, Canada's trade minister, Mexico's economy minister and U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said they reviewed USMCA committee work, noting progress and offering “recommendations for future work to maintain progress.”
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Endless Frontier Act Requires More Reporting to Congress on Forced Labor, Counterfeits, Phase 1 Deal
The Endless Frontier Act, a massive bill working its way through the Senate that aims to improve the United States' ability to compete economically with China, also addresses a number of issues relevant to importers, including enforcement of the forced labor statute, seizure of counterfeits, and progress on the issues that led to the Section 301 tariffs on Chinese goods.
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., said he's "conceptionally comfortable" with changes to the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program proposed by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore. (see 2105180075), and that "once the staff gives us a green light on it, we'll try to get it done." Neal, who spoke with an International Trade Today reporter in a brief interview at the Capitol May 19, said the renewal of GSP and the Miscellaneous Tariff Bill may be able to move expeditiously. He said he and Wyden are closely aligned on their views on trade.
Dairy trade groups complained to U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai that consultations have gone on long enough, and said it's time to open a formal dispute with Canada over its implementation of tariff rate quotas for dairy products. “America’s dairy farmers appreciated USTR initiating consultations with Canada on its dairy TRQ allocation measures and the decision to hold USMCA Free Trade Commission discussions to pursue reforms,” National Milk Producers Federation CEO Jim Mulhern said in a May 16 news release. “But Canada has always been obstinate on dairy, and at this stage it is increasingly clear that further action is needed to ensure a fair and transparent enforcement of USMCA.” The 68 trade groups said the dispute must begin because the next TRQ year begins July 1, but a dispute panel would take longer than that to rule.
The day before the first USMCA Free Trade Commission meeting, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai and Canada's trade minister, Mary Ng, talked about how to strengthen North American supply chains, combat forced labor and climate change, and reform the World Trade Organization.
International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from May 10-14 in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
Mexico and Canada emphasized how the COVID-19 pandemic has proven the need for interlinked supply chains, but U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai emphasized supply chains' downside as she, Mexico's economy minister and Canada's trade minister sat down to the first Free Trade Commission meeting of the USMCA. Tai said, "Not only have we discovered the fragility of our supply chains, but we have just begun to appreciate the degree to which they run counter to our collective goals of ensuring that workers within North America, and outside it, are paid a fair wage, in a safe workplace."
Ahead of the first Environmental Committee meeting under USMCA, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is seeking comments on topics that should be discussed, and advance questions for the public session of that meeting. The committee meeting will be June 17, 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. EDT.
Former Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiator Wendy Cutler told an audience for an Atlantic Council webinar that the U.S. cannot rejoin even a renegotiated TPP in the next two years, and maybe not during the next four. Cutler, a vice president of the Asia Society Policy Institute, said that the administration should try to ink mini-deals with TPP countries on digital trade, like it did with Japan, and said that maybe there can be coordination on supply chains or climate and trade. Cutler was also chief negotiator on the Korea free trade agreement.
The Mexican ambassador to the U.S. publicized a letter he sent to Labor Secretary Marty Walsh asking for consultations under the Labor Chapter of USMCA over the treatment of agricultural and meatpacking workers. "Although at the federal level labor rights in the United States protect all workers, regardless of their immigration status, in practice, factors such as ignorance, fear and abuse by some employers prevent migrant workers from exercising fully their labor rights in some industries and states," Esteban Moctezuma wrote May 12. He complained that there is no federal regulation for heat stress, and that employers do not comply with rest and bathroom protocols for agriculture workers. He said that agriculture workers are excluded from general wage and hour laws that provide for overtime pay and the right to organize and bargain collectively. Specifically, he said, undocumented workers don't have access to ask for reinstatement to jobs or payment of lost wages under the U.S. labor laws. And he said that officials overlook sexual harassment and violence in both sectors. "For the aforementioned reasons, the Government of Mexico considered it necessary to point out the importance of adequately enforcing its federal regulations to guarantee the labor rights of workers in the agricultural and meat processing and packaging industries in the United States," he wrote.